Mining with a high-end strategy: A study of Chinese mining firms in Africa and human resources implications

Research interest in Chinese businesses in Africa has surged in recent years. While state-owned firms have attracted considerable attention regarding the motives of their investment, relatively few studies have examined the strategy of the state-owned Chinese firms and human resource management (HRM) implications. Similarly, the causes underlying the expansion of Chinese mining firms internationally and the effects of management are yet to be adequately addressed in the international management literature. This study fills these research gaps through the investigation of the international expansion motives of four state-owned mining firms, the strategy adopted to facilitate this expansion and the HRM implications. Drawing on institutional theory and data from 39 interviews with government officials, managers and Chinese expatriates, factors such as why and how different institutional actors interact with each other at the strategic and operational levels to shape the Chinese mining firms business opportunities and constraints are examined. The study shows the Chinese mining firms flexible and pragmatic approaches to building connections with various institutional actors in the host country. They also develop organizational capacity through joint ventures and acquiring human resources from the international market. The study contributes to the knowledge in the international management area, a field that has been dominated by the study of private firms, by revealing the strategies and management practices of the Chinese state-owned multinational firms in the mining sector.